Tag: Noir

Shelby sat crouched in the bushes as she had done for almost a year now. Every night, since last November, she’d skulk down dark old lanes, darting from shadow to shadow in an effort see her idol at work; the cat burglar Le Bec. Shelby would sneak into theaters during the day, napping and dreaming along with her screen heroes. When she grew up she was going to be Robin Hood.

“Maid Marian is for girls who went to school,” she would think.

But no character played by Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks could hold a candle to Le Bec. Le Bec had the advantage of being real. Shelby would sit, unseen and observe, learning.

Tonight, Le Bec sat crouched on the the ledge of a third storey window. The house belonged to the Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Tulane, Giles Parker. Le Bec had overheard a conversation Parker was having at a recent social gathering to celebrate the re-election of Verne Sturgis to the Louisiana Circuit Court of Appeals. The exchange concerned the relocation of an artifact of great power to Parker’s house. Le Bec remembered Parker sounding reluctant, but was eventually brow beaten by Judge Sturgis who seemed keen to have it relocated from his home.

“What are you playing at?” Delareux grumbled at Rasputin who was holding Toli and him at gunpoint in his lab.

“Thanks to the many fine subjects, yielded by the streets of New Orleans, I’ve have finally perfected a serum that will give me an unstoppable army. Soon the Goblin Liberation Army will administer my Ichor into the water supply and the whole city be a mighty force,” Rasputin flipped a switch and the portraits of Tsar Nicholas II and Alexandra slid up and revealed the preserved corpses of the same, in glass cases, “A force I will use to crush the Soviets, bringing glory back to the Russian Empire, to Tsar Nicholas and his lovely bride Alexandra.”

“You’re insane,” Toli barked, “They’re dead.”

“Is okay,” Rasputin replied, “I know a guy. Now, you two. You’ve been thorns in my side long enough,” he raised his gun to shoot.

“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t shoot him or that it isn’t the right move to do so or even that I don’t want to shoot him myself, just saying that it won’t help.”

Sam pulled the hammer back on his .45 and rolled his eyes at me. I covered my ears and waited while I rolled my eyes at everything.

People with .45s are different from people with .38s in the same way people with .38s are different from people with .32s. People with .32s are the same as people with .22s and don’t let anyone tell you different.

Randal charged toward Shelby and Delareux swinging an immense boulder of a fist. The chain he was leashed to snapped taut and yanked Randal back. His fist passed in front of Delareux’s face, hitting him with a foul smelling breeze. A goblin leapt, grabbed onto Randal and scaled his torso. It began fiddling with the latch that restrained the beast. Randal grabbed the goblin and flung its crumpled corpse into the frenzied crowd. Randal roared. The combination of powerful lungs and a diminutive head made his roar sound like a foghorn. The low, gurgling undertone vibrated the wooden supports. Delareux saw the glare of the torchlights in the windows swaying in rhythm. The whole building shook.